Sara Guggisberg and Dr. Frank Christianson, BYU English Department
Most of Mark Twain’s novels, full of sharp wit and relevant social commentary, suggest his strong ability to read people and create characters that endure through decades, while still concealing his own opinion on society beneath layers of sardonic criticism or feigned admiration. But A Horse’s Tale—an odd little novel about an orphan girl, her favorite horse named Soldier Boy (a gift from Buffalo Bill), and the bloody murder of both at the horns of a tortured bull—does not fit Twain’s typical formula. At first glance, this novel is full of earnest superlatives rendered trite, an uneven narrative arc, and little character development; it is left out of anthologies, is the subject of no scholarship, and has remained out of print and obscured for years. When Dr. Christianson first found the novel, neither of us knew if we would find anything worthwhile within its pages. But as it turns out, it is thanks to the novel’s “faults” that I, over 100 years after its publication, had the opportunity to be the very first to write critically about the novel.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin, professor at Stanford University and director of Stanford’s American Studies program, is the only scholar to have compiled Twain’s works that feature animals. These works, including A Horse’s Tale, appear in her comprehensive collection titled Mark Twain’s Book of Animals, for which she served as editor. She offers an analysis in both the foreword and the afterword that claims a study of his later years reveal him as not simply an animal lover, but one of the earliest, and most prominent, animal advocates.
Through my research I have come to the same conclusion. Thanks to The Mark Twain Papers at The Bancroft Library of UC Berkeley, I accessed hundreds of archived letters, documents, and signed petitions—physical evidence that Twain put his popular name to good use. However, Twain’s name is not listed in the Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, and Fishkin remains the only scholar to have written extensively about Twain as an animal advocate. But Fishkin’s focus in Mark Twain’s Book of Animals is primarily on his novel A Dog’s Tale and is limited to Twain’s involvement in the antivivisection movement, while A Horse’s Tale is barely mentioned. Although A Dog’s Tale was a significant contribution to the animal welfare movement, it served as simply a stepping-stone to Twain’s truest moment as an animal advocate, and one that I believe Fishkin, and any other scholar, has overlooked.
After my research allowed me to construct a new framework in which to approach A Horse’s Tale, I was finally able to understand and account for the oddities of the novel, including the prominent characters Buffalo Bill and his horse, narration only by animals, and the striking similarity between this novel and Black Beauty (the connection between the two novels has never been explored in scholarship before—I am overwhelmed at the chance to discover it and look forward to researching it further).
Twain, so famous for creating realistic, relatable characters, used the mythic figure Buffalo Bill in the novel—not at all a relatable person and at tabloid-level fame at the time. But Twain knew his audience and the social climate they lived in and prescribed to, so he transposed the then-popular and highly marketable world of Buffalo Bill onto his own story to increase its recognition and reach. He even follows a template made famous by progenitor Black Beauty for advocating animal welfare in literature—both novels are narrated by a gentle horse, described as all black with a white star on the forehead. The similarities between A Horse’s Tale and Anna Sewell’s worldwide success function only to propel Twain’s agenda. For what other purpose would proud and successful Twain piggyback on another’s accomplishment?
Mark Twain once wrote, “the humorous writer pretends to absolute seriousness.” It is within this definition that most of his works are bound—in Innocents Abroad, his criticism of American affectation and pretense are shrouded in false praise; in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his distain for racism is softened behind childish confusion and learned behavior. Both are layered deeper still behind a sardonic narrative tone. But A Horse’s Tale, as Twain described, has a “sermon” in it. Steadfast, sentimental, and with a transparent agenda for animal welfare, it stands out against his other works as his most moral and didactic. Yes, Twain frequently offered his name and his opinion to support animal activism, but it was with A Horse’s Tale that he offered up his greatest craft and skill: writing a novel.
My research is still in its final stages of revision, and I plan to soon submit a paper to codystudies.org for publication. Dr. Frank Christianson, as the Senior Editor of The Papers of William F. Cody, will publish a scholarly version of A Horse’s Tale through University of Nebraska Press, and my research will inform his writing and will appear as appendix material in the book. We look forward to seeing A Horse’s Tale become widely recognized as one of Twain’s significant literary contributions.